How do you even study.

A bit of background on myself, a 18 y/o Canadian who realized that i have no actual procedure when studying. This might be why i was never able to improve my grades even if i work harder( or it might simply be my limit)So i am throwing this question hoping that i might get some inspiration: how did you study in high-school/uni?I appreciate all feedbacks and advices in advance!

Edit: wow thank y’all for the advices. Will definitely be trying them

 

Understand the material instead of memorizing. Of course, the rate at which you need to memorize things are depended on your study area, however, understanding the core and fundaments of the course/subject will give you an edge. Additionally, be disciplined while studying; remove distractions etc. Finally, the technique for studying is varying from a person to person; some prefer using flashcards, audio recording, writing, non-stop reading, visualizing etc. Try each of these methods and figute out which is the best suits you.

 

I don't have a procedure, never did. In HS, I rarely studied for anything, would sometimes go through some homework or ask a couple of questions from friends at lunch but other than that, I never studied. I did well in HS and continue to do well in college, but I think if I had real study habits I could get my grades up even more. I never gave it much thought I've always done well enough to get where and what I want so I don't care.

 
Most Helpful

Find and remember the passion for why you're studying what you are studying, you need a motivating "Why?" for why you're pursuing what you're pursuing that is beyond merely getting a nice looking GPA or financial rewards.

Find a few different conducive and motivating environment that is distraction free. For me personally, it is in front of other hard working students in libraries, gives me a lot of peer pressure to perform and a reminder of who I'm up against. What I do is I switch around different libraries at different areas so that I don't get bored of the places. The novelty in terms of environment drives my complacency away.

Turn off your notifications by going into airplane mode on your phone, quitting the chat apps off your PC, or using those timed app blockers. I personally have all notifications from chat apps and social media turned off at all times except for 2 important numbers in case of emergencies. That might be too extreme for a lot of people so do what suits your lifestyle better. I personally am an extremely distracted person so that's the drastic measure I had to take to keep focused, and it's been working out really well for me. Again, do what suits you.

Always aim to understand the material at a deeper level than required by doing your own research on it through either Google or reading books on the subject. Try your best to resist the temptation of just going through the motions or blindly memorising information just to pass, it won't help you in the long run.

Repetition is the best way to internalise what you have learnt. Timely repeat the material through every 1 week, 1 month, 3 months, 1 year etc will help you solidify what you learnt and not forget. You might also discover new insights or details that you missed when first going through the material. I time my repetition on the Reminders app on my iPhone, something simple like a small notebook or app you know you'd keep going back to is good enough.

Keep all your study notes and materials well-organised and in one single accessible area, preferably digitally. This will help you easily be able to access the materials and rid of the fuss of not being able to find what you need, becoming demotivated and end up not studying at all. Have back-ups for it in a cloud drive in case you one day break your laptop.

Find like-minded, motivated peers with good learning attitude and form a stable study group together. Bounce off what you know to others, help them out, and most people are kind enough to want to reciprocate the favour by in turn helping you with what you're weaker at. The study groups I am in helps give me the extra push to do well out of me wanting to help others and keeping the group vibes generally upbeat. You also reap the benefit of potentially creating good friendships that is bonded through beyond studying.

An advice I have not followed but wish to follow myself is to consistently seek out your profs outside lessons to ask whatever burning questions you have. Creating the relationship with them would also mean you would have a better time when you need recommendation letters for grad school or job apps.

Final thing is to remember to keep mentally and physically healthy, health will impact your studies much more than you think it would.

 

Unfortunately I can't recommend any apps as I personally don't use any of them. What I do is literally turn off all, and I mean all notifications in settings as it is the only way I can focus for a long period of time. I'm a very easily distracted person and when texts arrive on my phone I'd want to reply them all immediately. If I don't do this I'll just be on my phone all day long.

 

Studying goes a lot deeper than I once thought. If you want to learn exactly how your brain needs to study and actually take it seriously, read Study Smarter Not Harder by Kevin Paul. That book changed my life no joke. 

 

in my Accounting course, there would be 9 subjects taught throughout the year for each class and you know that the exam would test you on at least 5 of these concepts. the guy at the top of the class would create 7 "perfect" answers to past-papers on the same subjects, get it checked by the lecturerer, and then just continuously write the answer out over and over again (these are 1000s of words). and sit in a more prithteejious school library all day just writing the answer out. 

I learned this from him and ended up just point blank copying his answers and doing the same thing. spending all day in the library writing over and over again until I could do it from sheer muscle memory. used to end up with huge stacks of paper at the end of each day. and used to drink tonnes of red bulls.

 

 

This is what I would do. Just an exercise in rote learning. It’s good for passing exams, but after a month you’ll have forgotten all of it - which always kind of annoyed me afterwards.

 

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